International Women's Day: What's it like being a girl NOW?

A 16yr old weighs in on the state of the world for young girls today

Mar 7, 2015

If I had a piece of advice for my younger self, it would be to believe in myself. I would tell myself to believe in the impossible, to dismiss the idea that my gender would affect my future and to dream. 16 years later after finding feminism, I feel finally comfortable with my body and myself. I want to reach for the glass ceiling and hit it hard, and no, I won't be cleaning it when I get there, as often pointed out by feminist author Kathy Lette.

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However, this has not always been the case. Having a thirteen year old sister really worries me. I wonder if she's broken down into tears because she doesn't feel beautiful enough. Does she feel pressured into doing things she doesn't want to do because of the Internet and friends? Has she ever sent an indecent image to a boy? Or what about being harassed on the tube or bus, being yelled at, possibly even groped? Has she ever doubted her ability because she's a girl? These questions often leave me awake at night, worrying, because I've been there. I've learnt from it, but it crushed my self-esteem in the process, and I would hate my sister to go through the same thing.

I used to hate my body. I'm not even sure if I completely love it, yet. I've had the breakdowns, crying for hours, wishing I could change my nose, make my ears smaller, have longer legs and as a black woman the stereotype is that I would have a big bum – I don't. I wanted to remove the spots on my face. I just wanted to be beautiful, whatever that was. There were times when I didn't go out, didn't do the things I wanted to do because I didn't feel beautiful enough. I distinctively remember refusing to go to a Christmas party because I was worried about how my looks would be judged.

No girl – or boy, should have to go through that.

Being a girl in the UK is hard. Women may have the vote and the pill and the assumption is that we shut up and accept that we've got some equality now, but the statistics and the personal stories speak much louder. Girlguiding's 'Girls' Attitudes Survey 2013' reports that 70% of girls 13-21 report facing harassment at school or college. 87% of girls aged 11 to 21 think girls are judged more on their looks than their ability. 47% of girls aged 11 to 16 are unhappy with their bodies and 54% of girls aged 11-21 experience online abuse.

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These statistics feel like a personal blow in the stomach. There are a myriad of problems that girls are facing. In Year 9, I had a friend who was bulimic. In Year 10, I had a friend who was anorexic. In Year 11, I had a friend who tired to kill herself. Now in Year 12, I'm watching girls in Year 9 in my new school taking and sending the images of another girl without her consent, and these photos going viral. I watched how this girl broke down – and wondered how hard that must feel, knowing everyone had images of you naked because your friends thought it was 'banter'. I'm hearing boys who say they're joking after they say comments like, "If you get raped it's your fault". I'm also receiving online abuse – for writing about these issues and for saying that no, we're not equal, more or less, and there is still a system of institutionalized sexism and misogyny for girls in the 21st century.

Now, I'm in no way saying that boys don't have issues too, of course they do. (This is for all the men on Twitter who are always ready to jump on the bandwagon of #notallmen). However, increasingly, this is an issue to do with girls. It's an issue to do with how we treat girls in our society and how we bring up our daughters. It's an issue to do with educating the next generation of girls so we can tackle this issue properly.

In a 2009 NSPCC survey, one quarter of girls aged 13-17 reported experiencing intimate partner violence; one in nine female respondents had experienced severe physical violence; and almost three quarters of girls had experienced emotional abuse. So can somebody please explain to me why the hell Sex and Relationships Education (SRE) and gender based violence (GBV) is still not compulsory in our schools? When they are 66,000 girls under the age of 15 at risk of female genital mutilation? Or when we know that girls as young as five are worried about their weight and how they look? Or if that isn't enough – think about the number of girls groomed or are the victims of 'honour' based violence. I mean, what the f*ck are we waiting for? There is an endemic in the UK – and that is sexism and violence against women and girls. It's not happening in some bush in Africa. It's happening to the girl as she makes her way to school, in the classroom, it's happening to the girl who shops at H&M.

This International Women's Day, we should celebrate how far women have come. We've come a bloody long way – believe it or not, but marital rape used to be legal. Nonetheless, we cannot forget girls like myself or girls like my sister. We cannot have another generation of girls that we fail once again. We have to show them that its possible to reach the highest levels. We have to achieve gender equality. Imagine having an International Women's Day where we celebrated the end of all forms of violence against women? Now that would be cool.

Ten or fifteen years from now, I want my daughter to live in a world where doing something 'like a girl' is not an insult. Where being a girl is just as cool as being a boy. I want her to live in a world where she feels comfortable to be who she wants to be.

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